


petrichor

by bbl8te



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Genre: Angst, Ben Solo Deserved Better, Despair, Drabble, F/M, One-Shot, Post-TRoS, Reylo - Freeform, Reylo babies, Sadness, ben solo spoils his kids rotten, canonverse, fuel for your depression, in which nothing is happy and there are just TEARS, lonely rey, why did I write this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-23 04:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23005810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbl8te/pseuds/bbl8te
Summary: Rey struggles to fall asleep. The dreams that used to bring her comfort have changed, for better or for worse.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	petrichor

On Ahch-To, it rains more than it doesn’t. 

She thinks most people would be miserable here. But she has dreamed of rain for most of her life and she finds, now, that she can’t get enough of it. Tonight, the rain pours hard on the stone hut she’s claimed for herself. It’s a soothing sound, an insistent drumming to keep her company during the long nights.

Still, Rey can’t sleep.

She has never been good at it. Even so many years away from her life on Jakku, she tosses and turns, desperate for relief. At night, she used to picture an island -- this exact one, she knows now -- to ease her mind. She’d imagine what waves sounded like, crashing against the cliffside. She’d almost feel the sharp seaspray against her skin, taste the salt on her tongue. So much water. Endless blue and gray, stretching boundlessly into the horizon. 

She didn’t ever imagine that the rain could have a scent. Precious as it was on Jakku, it was still water. Why would it smell any different than it did out of her canteen or in a water trough?

But it does, unbelievably. It’s unlike anything she’s ever known. It’s a bright and crisp scent and, for lack of any other way to describe it, it smells like _life_. If she wasn’t so connected to the Force to know it already, she thinks the scent of rain alone would remind here that every part of the world around her is brimming with untapped potential. She closes her eyes and in the darkness of the hut, to the sound of heavy rain, imagines herself diving down beneath the ocean. She imagines her soul being repaired, like a shattered vase, pieces fitting together until she finally feels whole again.

The landscape behind her eyes shifts.

She sees a girl with wild black hair, softer than anything she’s ever known. It slips through her fingers like water and cascades down her back. She’s tall for her age, and stronger than she knows. She has her father’s tenacity and her mother’s resilience. She is a force to be reckoned with, barreling through obstacles like she’s never known fear (and she hasn’t, because her father spoils her so.) She carries herself like royalty, but fights like a scavenger. She needs a stern hand and patience, 

Her little brother is the shy one. He is long-faced and solemn, and so self-critical that it makes Rey ache with the need to hold him. But he prefers his father’s hold, he always has. He still sleeps comfortably on that broad chest, even though he’s nearing the age where it’s unseemly to still be carried that way. 

His father doesn’t have the heart to deny him. He’s a pushover, that Ben. For all of his sternness and solitude, he lets his children walk all over him. They can eat whatever they want, stay awake at all hours, and he lets them slide on their training. He indulges them too much and he knows it, but Rey has had a difficult time of reigning him in, too.

She doesn’t need to wonder what he thinks of their children. She can feel it. The love that fills him to the point of overflowing, combined with the pain and the misery and the regret. He sees his parents in his mind and when he needs to weep, he does, when the children are finally asleep. She feels her own spirit splitting with his and she holds him until the moment passes and they can both drift off to sleep, together. 

_Ben_ , she thinks. _Are you still with me?_

The dreams aren’t real, but they’re all she has. 

Solitude, dreams, and the scent after rain.

**Author's Note:**

> No worries, I hate myself too.
> 
> Come yell at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bbl8te)!


End file.
